This invention relates to a motorcycle, and more particularly to a body framing for motorcycles, which has a simplified construction and also facilitates mounting a front shield, a floor, and a body cover thereon.
In a conventional motorcycle having a floor, which is generally called "a motor scooter", and which includes a motor tricycle having one front wheel and two rear wheels, the frame body forming the body framing carries a front shield at its front portion, a floor at its intermediate portion, and a body cover at its rear portion, respectively. As known e.g. from Japanese Provisional Patent Publication No. 54-101758, the body framing generally comprises a front half portion formed of a pipe and substantially vertically and downwardly extending, and a rear half portion formed of a pair of parallel pipes and rearwardly and upwardly extending from the lower end of the front half portion in a bifurcated manner. The paired parallel pipes forming the rear half portion are joined to the lower end of the front half portion by means of welding or like means, and transversely spaced from each other by a suitable number of cross members bridged therebetween. Therefore, the conventional frame body has rather a large number of component parts, requiring a large number of man-hours for fabrication and assemblage, because the individual parts have to be separately fabricated and assembled. Further, the space defined between a rear portion of the paired parallel pipes and inner walls of the body cover mounted on the pipes is rather small in volume, making it difficult to mount the body cover onto the parallel pipes. Therefore, the conventional frame body is not satisfactory in respect of mass productivity, and mountability of parts.
On the other hand, the front shield and the body cover are conventionally each comprised of a plurality of discrete parts. For instance, the former is formed of an upper part and a lower part, and the latter a front part and a rear part, or a front part, opposite lateral side parts and a rear part, respectively. Therefore, the front shield and the body cover suffer from a large number of component parts as well as a large number of man-hour for fabrication and assembalge of the component parts. Also, they are complicate in construction.
Further, in a conventional motorcycle, a front fender, which is joined to a front fork rotatably supporting the front wheel, downwardly extends at a location rearward of the front wheel. The front shield is fabricated separately from the front fender so as to avoid the front shield interfering with turning of the front fender, which necessitates arranging the front edge of the floor at rather a rearward location. However, a space must be provided on the floor, on which the driver's foots are to be rested, resulting in a large axial size of the body of the motorcycle.
Further, the floor of a conventional motorcyle is formed with several fitting holes opening in its upper surface, through which screws or bolts extend to fasten the floor to supporting stays. The floor is also formed with grooves or recesses around the above fitting holes so that the heads of the screws or bolts do not project above the upper surface of the floor.
In such floor arrangement, mud or dust can often stay in the above grooves or recesses, which is difficult to remove, even by washing the motorcycle body, taking much time to completely remove the mud or dust. Further, the upper surface of the floor having such grooves or recesses is not smooth, and therefore has a poor appearance.